St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-09-26
HELPLEssNEss OF CHRIST.
HE Saved Others; Himself He
Cannot SaVe''-A Sermon.

HE Saved Others; Himself He
Cannot Save''-A Sermon.
Rev. W. J. Lhamon yesterday morn
ing preached at the church of Christ
from the text Mark Ky, 81. He said in
substance:
The mockery flung at Christ on the
cross seems all the more biting because
of its unintentional truth. To the king
liest one of the race of men they bowed
the knee. Wagging the head and saving.
Hail king of the Jews" To Him. who
was being destroyed by the cruel means
of the cross, who before three days
would arise from the grave, they said,
Thou that deStroyeSt the temple and in
three days buildest it again. save thy
self and come down from the crosS.''
Him who would have ruled by love they
crowned with thOrnS. making thus sad
mockery of the truth Of his royalty.
Among the bitterest things they said
was this, He saved others, Himself he
cannot save" There is truth in each
side of that antithesis, yet in the last
part of it there is falSehOod. We will
look at the first part of this, and then at
the last.
He saved Others" Possibly a
greater truth was never more meanly
spoken. In those three words. He
saved Others" they were stating as
tersely as mortal tongue can, the bene-
ficent life work of earths Lord and
heavens Son. In this sermon Jesus
sought to save; in his parallels he sought
to save: in his prayers he sought to
save: in his miracles he did save phys-
cally. and sought to save mentally, NOR
ally and spiritually. Jesus loved to save
and lived to save. In all his life he vir-
ITALY said, My mission is mercy and
not cruelty; | was born to create but
not to destroy: my soul goes out natur-
ally in upbuilding but not in down.
building. They said, Let Christ come
down from the cross now, that we may
see and believe" They might have
seen, but they would not have believed.
They would probably have been cruel
enough to have nailed him there again.
Belief depends as much Oh the will as
that total depravity is Unborn, but there
are some in whom it seems ingrown.
There is fathomleSs diaboicalism in
man as well as meaSureleSS capacity
for righteousness. Himself
he cannot save" There are crises i'm
which, if a man would save himself, he
must lose his cause. At such times
man who loves his cause more than his
life will die. There are times when, if
llldU WOuIU continue 10 i've, he must
give the lie to all his former life. At
such times righteous man will choose
to die. There may be times when this
good man by dying could save and con-
vert that bad mans life. In such a case
few would be found to die, vet '.GOd
cUmmendS his love to us in that while
we were yet sinners Christ died for u.s.
In view of all the above the question
comes, Why could Jesus not save him.
self? The answer is easy, but sad and
instructive: Because he loved more
than life the truth that he lived to
preach, namely, that he was the Son of
God and the Savior of men,
and that men ought to so ac-
cept him. Because he was strong
enough to practice the forgiveness
that he preached. Because since men
were cruel enough to demand that eX-
IRENE test he would prove himself hum
bic enough, brave enough, and consist
ant enough to submit to it, and so prove
in himself the mastery that he claimed
over disease, and death, and the grave,
and the spirit world even. In death he
wrestled with death and in his resurrec-
ton came back with the spoils of the
grave and the crown of life. An old
writer has finely said: HE who re-
fused to come down from the cross cam
up from the grave. and it was a greater
matter to destroy death by rising than
to save life by descending" They said:
HE cannot save himself" But did he
not, and in a way that they could not
have dreamed?